Hand saws are quite common accessory items for campers, hunters, farmers, gardeners, and for many different outdoor activities. A variety of folding hand saws are available which makes the saws easily carried without danger, and yet enables them to be opened for use with great ease. Typically such saws are used for trimming tree limbs and branches. For example, hunters carry these saws in order to clear branches from a hunting stand, and create a clear, unobstructed line of sight.
Many such saws are shown in the prior art, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. D-357,166 to Concari, D-307,702 to Hsu, D-307,383 to Huang, D-359,672 to Gardiner and D-306,817 to McMorrough.
Hand saws such as these may be folded much like a pocketknife and carried in the user's pocket. Alternatively most of these folding saws also have a hole passing through the handle to which a carrying strap or the like may be attached, for carrying the saw hanging from one's belt. Also, such a strap serves to help the user hold onto the saw when it is being used.
One of the disadvantages of these folding saws, however, has been the fact that they are rather short and thus the user is limited by his own reach to tree limbs which can be removed with the saw. Occasionally this leads to dangerous situations wherein a user will try to overextend and reach a branch just slightly out of his ordinary reach. If he is a hunter in a tree stand, for example, the consequences can be very serious. But even on the ground one can underestimate the size or falling direction of a tree limb with obvious consequences. A few prior patents have provided saws with a way of attaching an extension handle but have met with little success because of limitations in the structural configurations. For example U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,068 relates to a saw having a band-saw type of blade in a tubular handle, with a coupling for attaching an extension, but the saw is a special purpose saw. Similarly U.S. Pat. No. 2,762,407 teaches a hand saw with an extension pole attached, but the special nature of the saw and the single attaching point limits general utility of the saw.
Accordingly a primary object of the present invention is to provide an accessory for a folding hand saw for adapting the saw to an extended reach capability.
Another object of the invention is to provide an accessory which enables a variety of folding hand saws to be extended by means of common extension handles.
A further object of the invention is to provide an accessory for a folding hand saw which serves to connect the handle of a hand saw to an extension pole.
Still another object of the invention is to provide an accessory for a folding saw which can itself serve as an auxiliary handle for the saw.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide an accessory of the type described which can be produced to adapt a number of different models of saws to readily available extension handles or can be made to fit specific, commercially available saws.